Samantha Power's "Problem from Hell"
I've been reading, on and off, Samantha Power's book on genocide ("A Problem from Hell": America and the Age of Genocide, 2002). Alberto, the professor I work for, asked me how I can stomach it, but the truth is, I have always used my reponse to human injustice, above the individual level, to jumpstart my concern for the world at all. That's part of why I studied political science. (If I hadn't discovered this pattern, I probably would have remained confused as I was in my freshman-sophomore years, and become a third-rate translator or something.) So in a way, this book falls onto well-developed receptors in my brain. Nonetheless, there are things wrong with this approach, I am sure. But apparently it enables me to read books on gassing and extermination - though mainly the political responses to these - when older men cannot.
So I had a few thoughts reading it today. I was reading about Iraq's genocide (this word has a fascinating history) of the Kurds, and that the US was reticent to confirm the killings for years. This was because Iraq was an ally against Iran at the time, in the late 1980s, just after the Iraq-Iran war. But Power alleges it was also because the US had invested immensely in Iraq in the 1980s, including through agricultural and other economic subsidies and not just weapons. And the Reagan administration, as well as many House members, had faith that these years of investment will "create a kinder, gentler dictator." Power attributes this belief to a tendency in diplomacy to "improve relations," but mainly to a desire to advance domestic US economic interests.
This has some interesting implications. How does a long-term provision of subsidies to Iraq by the US government entail the advancement of interests of US firms? Only when these domestic economic interests are mainly huge agricultural exporters, oil producers, etc. - all the types of large business that rely on foreign affairs policy to make money, and have good connections. They probably needed the US gov't to elicit cooperation from Hussein to work in Iraq, since it was a hugely state-controlled economy. This is nothing original really, but it's interesting how different was Reagan's and his administration's thinking on the Soviet Union almost at the same time. Any cooperation, and god forbid US assistance, was seen as weak-willed, naive and counterproductive. Yet Khrushev, or even Stalin since it was probably he who still ruled the SU in the Americans' historical memory - how do you compare him to Saddam in terms of brutality? Were their state machineries that different, or their methods of state building? It was probably important that Russia was largely closed economically, held no markets for US producers (except, I seem to remember, some agricultural exchange in the late years), and could not be convinced to open them.
I don't believe, really, in economic interest explanations of US foreign policy on their own, but boy they are certainly important. Especially if I think back to all I read - and forgot - about US in Central America. As for the other complementary explanations, my head starts swimming when I think about conceptions of diplomacy. Granted, I've never read or learned much about it. But ideas in foreign policy often seem to me extrapolated from micro-level human behavior, the Aristotle-like conceptions of world as family, friendship, or the stages of life or something like that. Based on these symbolic conceptions of "not angering," "appeasing," "challenging," which when you apply them not to people but to clans of politicians and bureaucracies, don't make sense. I guess I ought to read more political science about it, I think there's a large literature on signaling in international relations... Not that I would understand it
But also, to end this too-long post, the change of the American approach to Iraq makes more sense in light of the failure of the hopes for a gentler Hussein. (How stupid, in the first place! To think that people with socialist ideas about the economy, however silly, are life-threating, but blood-thirsty dictators swaddled in power may get better.) But it means that this revival of preemptive, strong-stick American foreign policy toward Iraq arose in reaction not to Carter's failures in Iran, or those in Vietnam, Russia, whatever, but in response partly to Reagan's - or, to be fair, everyone else's too, I don't know - blunders in Iraq not long ago. Maybe it was inconvenient to frame it this way, however, because Reagan was so famous for his sexy tough dealings with the Evil Empire.
This book of Power's is, on the whole, so impressive! Of course it's hypocrticial to be reading it now and know nothing about Darfur, but welcome to the reality of my 'intellectual pursuits.'
So I had a few thoughts reading it today. I was reading about Iraq's genocide (this word has a fascinating history) of the Kurds, and that the US was reticent to confirm the killings for years. This was because Iraq was an ally against Iran at the time, in the late 1980s, just after the Iraq-Iran war. But Power alleges it was also because the US had invested immensely in Iraq in the 1980s, including through agricultural and other economic subsidies and not just weapons. And the Reagan administration, as well as many House members, had faith that these years of investment will "create a kinder, gentler dictator." Power attributes this belief to a tendency in diplomacy to "improve relations," but mainly to a desire to advance domestic US economic interests.
This has some interesting implications. How does a long-term provision of subsidies to Iraq by the US government entail the advancement of interests of US firms? Only when these domestic economic interests are mainly huge agricultural exporters, oil producers, etc. - all the types of large business that rely on foreign affairs policy to make money, and have good connections. They probably needed the US gov't to elicit cooperation from Hussein to work in Iraq, since it was a hugely state-controlled economy. This is nothing original really, but it's interesting how different was Reagan's and his administration's thinking on the Soviet Union almost at the same time. Any cooperation, and god forbid US assistance, was seen as weak-willed, naive and counterproductive. Yet Khrushev, or even Stalin since it was probably he who still ruled the SU in the Americans' historical memory - how do you compare him to Saddam in terms of brutality? Were their state machineries that different, or their methods of state building? It was probably important that Russia was largely closed economically, held no markets for US producers (except, I seem to remember, some agricultural exchange in the late years), and could not be convinced to open them.
I don't believe, really, in economic interest explanations of US foreign policy on their own, but boy they are certainly important. Especially if I think back to all I read - and forgot - about US in Central America. As for the other complementary explanations, my head starts swimming when I think about conceptions of diplomacy. Granted, I've never read or learned much about it. But ideas in foreign policy often seem to me extrapolated from micro-level human behavior, the Aristotle-like conceptions of world as family, friendship, or the stages of life or something like that. Based on these symbolic conceptions of "not angering," "appeasing," "challenging," which when you apply them not to people but to clans of politicians and bureaucracies, don't make sense. I guess I ought to read more political science about it, I think there's a large literature on signaling in international relations... Not that I would understand it
But also, to end this too-long post, the change of the American approach to Iraq makes more sense in light of the failure of the hopes for a gentler Hussein. (How stupid, in the first place! To think that people with socialist ideas about the economy, however silly, are life-threating, but blood-thirsty dictators swaddled in power may get better.) But it means that this revival of preemptive, strong-stick American foreign policy toward Iraq arose in reaction not to Carter's failures in Iran, or those in Vietnam, Russia, whatever, but in response partly to Reagan's - or, to be fair, everyone else's too, I don't know - blunders in Iraq not long ago. Maybe it was inconvenient to frame it this way, however, because Reagan was so famous for his sexy tough dealings with the Evil Empire.
This book of Power's is, on the whole, so impressive! Of course it's hypocrticial to be reading it now and know nothing about Darfur, but welcome to the reality of my 'intellectual pursuits.'
posted by Katherine at 2:20 PM
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